The Brookfield town board unanimously approved a $43.4 million financing project, including nearly $38 million in principal, Tuesday for The Corners, the Von Maur-anchored project being developed by The Marcus Corp.

The approval of the developer agreement comes after two and a half years of discussions between Marcus and the town and is a major milestone in the project moving forward. The Corners is expected to include 240,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, 150 apartments and a 140,000-square-foot Von Maur department store, the first in the state, on West Blue Mound Road near Barker Road.

The tax incremental financing proposal includes $28.6 million to help pay for a parking structure on the site, $450,000 for construction of a bridge over Poplar Creek, infrastructure work, administrative costs and a debt reserve fund of about $2.6 million.

Including interest, the deal will cost a total of about $59.3 million, said Mike Harrigan, senior financial adviser and chairman of Ehlers & Associates, the town's consultant on the project.

Under the agreement, the project would create a total of $170.3 million of value in the TIF district by the end of 2016. In a TIF deal, a municipality loans money to a project and is paid back through the increase in property taxes on the property.

The town expects the TIF district, including any developments outside of the Corners, to generate $187 million, Harrigan said.

According to the draft agreement, Marcus would complete the project by the end of 2015, but the agreement allows a one-year extension to the end of 2016. Marcus will need to submit preliminary site plans to the town early in 2014 to make the 2015 deadline, according to the memo.

The agreement is designed so that the money would be repaid within 20 years, but the town has a maximum of 27 years to recover the money under a recent law approved by the state Legislature.

The town would issue community development authority bonds to fund most of the deal. The town also would use $9.1 million in municipal revenue in a "pay-as-you-go" arrangement, where Marcus would spend the money upfront and the town would pay it back as the taxes on the project are generated. The town also could use increase in hotel or motel taxes generated by The Corners to fund part of the project.

Next, the town board and a joint review board must approve creation of the TIF district. That's expected to happen in February or March.

In August, Marcus announced it had reached a tentative deal with CarVal Investors, an independent investment subsidiary of Cargill Inc., to own 80 percent of the project and M&J Wilkow Ltd., a Chicago real estate firm, to own another 10 percent.